Harvard students send a hamburger to space

Five Harvard students took a historic step in fast food history recently by sending a hamburger 30 kilometers in the air into the earth’s stratosphere. They recorded the journey, cut it down into a few minutes, and loaded it onto Youtube.

The students involved, from left to right: Jamie Law-Smith, Renzo Lucioni, Nuseir Yassin, Matthew Moellman, Daniel Broudy. Most are majoring in science-related fields.
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The students emailed b.good to see if the hamburger chain would like to take part in the project. The restaurant provided them with $1,000 backing for the project, and of course, the burger.
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The Harvard students put their contraption together before the launch. The project took them a few weeks, during which b.good fed them, Lucioni said.
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The materials needed for the contraption included the helium, a balloon, a Styrofoam shipping container, a GoPro Hero camera, a smart phone for GPS, a parachute, hand warmers to keep the camera warm in the cold stratosphere, and, most importantly, the hamburger and it’s acrylic seat.
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This Styrofoam box held the camera, GPS and handwarmers that kept the camera warm in the cold stratosphere. A parachute, to ease the fall, is attached.
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To their surprise, when they retrieved the device from the tree where it had landed, it was gone. The camera battery had died by then, so it remains a mystery what happened to the now-famous meal. Presumably, a squirrel feasted on it before they were able to get it out of the tree, Lucioni said.
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The burger and its makeshift spaceship were launched from Sturbridge, Mass. It landed several hours later in Byfield.
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Matthew Moellman and Nuseir Yassin look into the camera right before the release.
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Lucioni and Broudy inflate the weather balloon with helium before take-off.
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The group of friends hopes to do another similar but improved project in the future. They have talked to Boloco about collaborting on a "burrito in space" mission, but nothing is definite yet.
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